What the charities earn

Every year the shops are full of charity Christmas cards urging us to donate to our favourite causes.

But, frequently, less than half the proceeds end up in charity coffers - and sometimes as little as 2p in the pound goes to the chosen good cause.

An Evening Standard survey found cards from Harrods, Next and the Royal Festival Hall foyer contribute between only two and five per cent of the retail price to the designated charities.

Although there is no legal minimum, the Charities Advisory Trust (Cat), which advises charities on trading issues, considers the donation should be at least 10 per cent.

The lowest percentage was found at Harrods. A pack of five Liz Dexter cards was on sale for £5.25. But we found that only 10p of that amount went to medical research charity Action Research - 1.9 per cent of the retail price. The Royal Festival Hall's cards printed by Jodds came second from bottom, with 2.1 per cent of the price going to the British Heart Foundation.

High street shops such as Marks & Spencer, Boots and BHS - which produce own-brand cards - usually pay 10 per cent to the charity concerned. But Next pays as little as five per cent split between Macmillan Cancer Relief, Barnardos and the British Heart Foundation.

A spokesperson at the Charity Commission said: "There's no fixed rule about how much should go to charity. The key issue is that people should be able to make an informed choice about whether to buy or not."

Charity cards make up an estimated one-fifth of the £300million Christmas card market. The best way to maximise the amount going to good causes is to buy direct from charities or from not-for-profit organisations such as Card Aid, run by the Cat, or Cards for Good Causes.

If a card is bought direct from a charity shop, all profits over and above printing costs and overheads go to charity. Three-quarters of the cost of a card bought from one of Barnados shops goes directly to the charity, while the figure is 70 per cent in the case of Help The Aged.

If a box of 20 Oxfam cards produced by publisher EMC is bought for £4.49 at Rymans, Oxfam will get 30p from EMC - around 7.5 per cent. If the same cards are bought from one of the charity's shops, Oxfam will make about 35 per cent profit, after the costs of publishing and selling the cards are deducted.

Oxfam raised £2.7million last year by selling 14 million cards. Since 1995, retailers have been required by law to say on the back of cards how much money goes to the charities.

But Max Kemp of the Charity Christmas Card Council said: "Some retailers are vague and say they will donate 10 per cent of retailers' purchase price to a charity. Shoppers have to think hard before they realise this means 10 per cent of the lower wholesale price, not the higher selling price. We'd like all retailers to be clear and unambiguous and say, for example, '10p in £1 of the sale price.'"

Retailers say the percentage is agreed by the charity concerned. A Harrods spokesman said: "The Liz Dexter card is widely available elsewhere and there are many other charity cards sold at Harrods from which a greater percentage of the retail price is donated to charity.

"Harrods does not set the level of donation - this is agreed between the manufacturer and the charity."